The History of the Four Sixes Ranch

By theadmin

Ears belonging to Texan ranchers, Panhandle residents, and cattle aficionados everywhere perked up when they caught a certain name — actually, a certain number — mentioned in the fourth season of Paramount’s “Yellowstone” series. While the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch in Montana might be fictional, the Four Sixes (or the 6666) Ranch is enormously real and has been for well over a century.

Renowned worldwide for producing thousands of top-quality Angus beef cattle and American quarter horses, the Four Sixes Ranch consists of three divisions around the Texas Panhandle totaling more than 266,000 acres of land. To put that in perspective, that’s nearly twice the size of Chicago and about 18 times the size of Manhattan. And yet, the behemoth Four Sixes empire only ranks ninth on the list of Texas’ largest ranches.

But, as with every empire, the 6666 Ranch wasn’t built in a day. Here’s a glimpse at the storied history of the Four Sixes Ranch.

The Dawn Of 6666

The Four Sixes Ranch‘s illustrious legacy dates back to 1870, when Samuel “Burk” Burnett, the entrepreneurial 19-year-old son of a farmer, obtained his first 100 head of cattle — and the now-iconic 6666 brand. Contrary to romanticized versions of the story, Burnett didn’t win the cattle in a poker game by playing four sixes. In reality, Burnett purchased the herd from a Denton rancher, who included the “open six” brand as part of the sale.

Burnett grew his herd over the next three years, until the nation’s economy was struck by the Panic of 1873 (a financial crisis so severe that, for the next 50-plus years, it was referred to in America as “the Great Depression” until a new standard was set in 1929). But the young Burnett had a steady head on his shoulders and avoided joining the national “panic.” In the first winter of the depression, he drove more than 1,100 steers to Wichita, Kansas, where he eventually sold them for a $10,000 profit, a small fortune at the time.

Burnett struck up a close friendship with Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, who leased 300,000 acres of grassland to Burnett for raising his cattle. Although many cowboys and ranchers of the time were at violent odds with the Comanche people, Burnett made it a point to learn the native people’s culture and respect their rights to the land. The respect went both ways, and Burnett’s herd of 10,000 cattle — all branded with four sixes — grazed peacefully on Comanche lands until the lease ended in the early 1900s.

Of course, the expanding frontiers and ways of the Old West came to a close in the 19th century. Around 1900, Burnett, recognizing the need for private land ownership to solidify his business, took his herd to the Texas Panhandle. There, Burnett purchased two ranches and a few other plots of land that, at the time, amounted to a third of a million acres — the foundation of the Four Sixes empire.

Boom Years

Of the two ranches Burnett acquired, it was the one in Guthrie (94 miles east of Lubbock) that he renamed the Four Sixes Ranch and designated as the headquarters of his enterprise. Here, he bred cows with purebred Hereford and Durham bulls, and their offspring regularly won awards at livestock shows nationwide. (The ranch would eventually shift its focus to raising Angus cattle.)

The ongoing success of the 6666-branded cattle vaulted Burnett’s business to new heights. He spent $100,000 building an enormous, 11-bedroom ranch house at the Four Sixes Ranch in Guthrie, where he regularly hosted notable friends and guests, including President Theodore Roosevelt, vaudeville performer Will Rogers, and his old friend

Parker. Indeed, Burnett was a renowned figure in Texas by now. He also received attention while serving as the president of the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo, where he helped launch the first official indoor rodeo in the country, which would become the oldest continuously running livestock show and rodeo.

As if the enterprise weren’t already flourishing financially, oil was struck on Burnett’s other ranch at Dixon Creek in 1921. A 3,052-foot-deep well was drilled, and 175 barrels of black gold were drawn up on the first day of pumping. The well continued producing oil for more than five decades, providing financial security to the Burnett family’s ranching legacy. And for a cherry on the icing on the cake: A second oil field was struck on the Four Sixes Ranch in Guthrie in 1969.

The Passing Of The Reins

In 1922, less than a year after the first oil fortune was discovered, Burk Burnett passed away at age 73. The legendary rancher handed the reins to various trustees, who ran the formidable business until 1980 when the ranch once more fell into the hands of a Burnett: Burk’s great-granddaughter, Anne Windfohr Marion.

Marion (known as “Little Anne” to her family and friends) continued the legacy she inherited up until her death in 2020. During that time, she made the Four Sixes Ranch one of the first ranches in the country to provide medical benefits and retirement plans to its staff, which resulted in many cowboys and ranch hands working there for decades. She also focused on ecological conservation and natural grazing in the ranch’s daily operations, spearheading efforts to transform the lands back to the diverse and abundant states they were in the 1870s — conditions more conducive to raising healthy cattle.

According to Marion’s will, the historic Four Sixes Ranch was put up for sale in 2020. The three remaining divisions under the 6666 brand amounted to more than 266,000 acres, more than 6,000 Angus cattle, and hundreds of horses, which were all listed for a whopping $341.7 million combined.

And who is the latest steward of this 150-year-old Texan landmark? No one is more qualified than “Yellowstone” co-creator Taylor Sheridan. A native of Cranfills Gap who owned a ranch in Texas prior to his purchase of the Four Sixes, Sheridan — representing a buyer’s group — purchased the entire brand and its assets for an undisclosed amount in 2021.

“The legacy of the 6666 Ranch and Miss Marion’s vision for the ranch are vital not only to the ranch itself, but the rich heritage of ranching in Texas,” Sheridan told The Texas Spur in 2021. Little is known about Sheridan & Co.’s intentions beyond that, but since the sale, it’s been (good) business as usual around the Four Sixes Ranch.

See For Yourself

In your lifetime, you might not get the chance for Kevin Costner to ship you off to the Four Sixes Ranch to learn the hard truths of cowboyhood. But the real-life ranch does offer immersive tours to the public. You can explore the supply house, the “Big House,” the “L” barn, and more, and watch firsthand as cowboys execute the operations of horse breeding and cattle management.

But you’d better book your tour soon before it becomes too hard to reserve a spot. Sheridan is reportedly working on yet another “Yellowstone” spinoff series under the working title “6666” — and you don’t have to put six and six together to determine the premise.

Think the Four Sixes Ranch is big? Check out this 825,000-acre ranch in South Texas that’s called ‘King Ranch’ for a reason.